


the best kind of noise

by phylocalist



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Post-Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), developing friendship through playing an mmorpg, gratuitous noise and music metaphors, peni parker-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 04:27:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21238148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phylocalist/pseuds/phylocalist
Summary: “So, I made this video-game,” Peni blurts out, on the exact, extremely rare, moment that the video call gets quiet.“Youmadea video-game?” Miles asks immediately, incredulous.“What’s a video-James?” Peni hears Noir mumble, like he wasn’t expecting anyone to hear.Peni smiles and wrings her hands anxiously, but continues slightly more confident. “Yeah, I made a video-game. I just finished running all of the tests I need and I thought we could, uh, play it? Together? Whenever everyone has time.” Gwen and Miles nod, encouraging, and she relaxes slightly. “It should be able to work no matter which reality we’re in, and we should all be able to play together. It’s—I think it could be fun.”





	the best kind of noise

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was originally written for the behind the mask zine, project which has since fallen through and was unable to be completed. this movie and this fic in particular is still very dear to my heart, so i thought it was time to release it out onto the world.
> 
> i hope someone can find happiness, if only for a little bit, while reading this, the same way i found it while writing.
> 
> thank you so much to [rena](https://twitter.com/hinatella) for the beta!!
> 
> p.s.: this fic takes peni's background and backstory from her own comic, SP//dr, but happens after the into the spider-verse movie.

_ Tap. Tap. Tap. _

The pen taps against the blank page of the open notebook on Peni’s desk. The teacher drones on with his lecture, the sound of it washing over Peni, stretching around her.

_ Tap. Tap. Tap. _

“Maybe a big suit of armor. Like SP//dr,” Peni mumbles, her gaze fixed on the clouds outside but mind somewhere else. She’s been thinking about it for weeks, but has put off actually making it a reality.

_ Tap. Tap. Ta— _

“Peni Parker!”

The shout startles Peni into dropping the pen she was tapping and it clatters against the floor, the sound amplified in the strangely quiet classroom. The teacher looks exasperated, so he’d probably been calling her for a while. But when Peni’s eyes shift, she can see one of the SP//dr members standing next to the teacher and immediately gets up without a word, grabbing her backpack.

“You’re dismissed,” the teacher says through gritted teeth, face red with exasperation, and Peni follows the SP//dr agent out without even looking back once.

*

“Hmm, maybe if I introduce a new mechanic I can make it work, but that would throw off this other code…” Peni muses, her fingers making quick work of her thoughts as she introduces new lines of code and replaces the affected ones.

SP//dr crawls down her arm and over her hand to the keyboard of the computer, pitters around it without getting in the way. Peni can feel him, the excitement and curiosity, and she knows he can feel her too, the concentration and drive. He always moves away exactly when she needs him to and Peni lets herself smile for a moment as SP//dr crawls back up her hand and attaches himself to her wrist.

She reaches out for another chip from the bag and feels SP//dr crawl down to get a taste himself. Peni rolls her eyes. Of course he wanted to get to the chips.

She bites down on one of the chips and thinks about how uncle Ben would probably chastise her for it, how he’s always talking about how snacking after dinner is bad for her health, but it has always helped her concentrate when she has to code. Something about the methodic pressing of buttons and the crunch of the salty snacks just goes together so well.

Peni presses run on the macro simulator and lets the code run its first test, crossing her fingers that no errors she hadn’t foreseen turn up. It’s not like she can’t deal with them; she’s pretty sure she’s gotten everything right. Tiny errors that throw off a entire chain of actions but can’t be found within all of the surrounding code are always frustrating to deal with.

The macro runs smoothly, though, and Peni whoos as soon as she sees the pop-up.

_ Macro test successful. No errors detected. _

On the periphery of her consciousness, Peni can feel SP//dr perk up. He crawls out of the bag of chips and up to her shoulder, where he nestles himself against her neck. In her mind, she can almost see him smile, too.

*

It gets busy in the next few weeks, so Peni’s time for working on the graphics severely diminishes. She finds herself trapped between breaking up gang fights, school homework and SP//dr training sessions with what feels like almost no time to even breathe.

Matt joins her for another mission once, and he talks about her dad again. She listens willingly, trying to picture the missions Matt talks about, constructing an image of her dad for herself, but it all feels like static in her head. White noise.

It’s the only times when she feels SP//dr retreating from her mind, like he’s giving her space to think about his dad without disrupting her. She’s always thankful for it.

The story gets cut short when Matt finally spots their lead and then Peni’s suiting up again and they’re fighting. She can still feel the static noise crawling through her veins, like when SP//dr crawls along the sensitive spots of her skin and pinches just slightly, but it feels uncomfortably intense.

“Hey aunt May, can we put some music on?” Peni asks through the communicator to the SP//dr base.

She can hear her aunt May sigh, but she knows she’s smiling. “It helps you both concentrate, I know. Go on.”

Peni smiles. “Thanks.”

The rest of the fight goes smoothly as “I Was A Teenage Anarchist” by Against Me! plays on the inside of the SP//dr suit. Peni feels the static noise wash out of her body as the notes of guitars and drums replace it, a soundtrack perfectly timed to their kicks and punches as they all fight their way through the gang leader’s den.

When they’re done, Matt hitches a ride on the back of the SP//dr suit as Peni web-slings their way back to the SP//dr headquarters. She hears him whoop as they swing, laugh open-mouthed and genuine, and Peni thinks maybe that’s the best kind of noise.

*

“So, I made this video-game,” Peni blurts out, on the exact, extremely rare, moment that the video call gets quiet.

“You _ made _ a video-game?” Miles asks immediately, incredulous.

“What’s a video-James?” Peni hears Noir mumble, like he wasn’t expecting anyone to hear.

Peni smiles and wrings her hands anxiously, but continues slightly more confident. “Yeah, I made a video-game. I just finished running all of the tests I need and I thought we could, uh, play it? Together? Whenever everyone has time.” Gwen and Miles nod, encouraging, and she relaxes slightly. “It should be able to work no matter which reality we’re in, and we should all be able to play together. It’s—I think it could be fun.”

Her mouth curves weirdly around the shape of the word _ fun_, feels foreign on her tongue. It’s not something she was ever focused on, always too busy with filling in the big shoes her father had left behind and saving the world. But they… they had showed her what _ fun _ felt like and how important it was.

“Yeah! I love that idea!” Miles exclaims, immediately excited. “Game night with the spiders!”

Peni sees Gwen roll her eyes, but it’s with affection. “_That _ sounds lame, but the video-game sounds like it could be a fun time, Peni.” She smiles at her and Peni smiles back.

“Okay, I see you teens getting excited and all that but, the real problem here is…” Peter interrupts and Peni feels herself deflate. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought it up. But then Peter smirks and continues, “Can you teach us old crowd to play it? Do I need one of those fancy consoles the kids have these days?”

“Camisole…” Noir mumbles. “We need camisoles to meet video-James?”

Peni relaxes again and feels a small bout of laughter bubble up her throat. “Yes,” she nods. “I can teach everyone how to play it.”

“Okay, but,” Ham interrupts. “Do I have to play like one of you humans?”

Peni can see him scrunching up his nose in disgust at the thought and she laughs again, grateful for her early assumption that introducing an animal-based race to the game would be a good idea for Ham.

“No, you don’t,” she assures.

“Then I think we’re all in!” Ham exclaims.

“Yeah!” Miles and Gwen say in a chorus excitedly, while Peter adds his own in his usual tone, though Peni can see he’s just as curious as the rest of them.

“Then, we can make this Saturday the first game night and I can teach you all the basics.”

They decide on a time that works for them and Peni agrees on sending everyone the software before Saturday. She feels SP//dr nudge on the corners of her mind as she speaks; he feels like happiness and something that makes her think that he’s proud of her. She feels warm, a small smile spreading her mouth.

After they all say their goodbyes and start disconnecting, Peni sees Noir hang back. Intrigued, she turns to his screen on the video call.

“It might be a tad embarrassing, but I will get the camisole necessary to meet video-James. Don’t worry, little lady. Goodbye.”

His screen disappears in a blink before Peni can say anything, and she can only laugh.

*

“So, since you all already played on your own time and figured the controls out, you can go explore all you want,” Peni says into the microphone, hears the excited exclamations of Gwen, Miles and Ham in response and smiles to herself. “I’ll just teach you guys the mechanics in the meantime.”

“Yeah, these are _ a lot _ of buttons, I don’t know if we’re going to get it,” Peter says, already sounding defeated over the voice chat.

“No, it’s fine, it’s pretty easy. You just gotta remember a few controls,” Peni replies, moving her own character over to stand in front of Peter and Noir’s. “The arrows in the keyboard are for moving. C’mon, try it.” When their characters finally start moving, it’s clumsy and hilarious, but Peni holds back the laughter because she knows it’ll only make them feel worse about the situation. “That’s it! That’s how you move.”

They spend a few minutes mastering the moving, and then they move onto basic attacks. Taking Peter and Noir into account, she had made sure that the attack buttons were few—only three—but their magic was held in their ability to be utilized in a dozen different combinations for stronger attacks. It was even as easy as simply randomly mashing the two buttons at different times because the system would recognize it as a chain of button presses and combine them.

Going over the attack buttons takes longer, but after a moment Peni smiles as she watches Peter and Noir randomly punch and kick the empty air before them. She opens up the game’s modding interface and inputs a command.

“Okay, I’ve turned off the un-friendly fire, so you can fight each other now and not actually kill your characters,” Peni says, with a grin. “You won’t take any damage.”

“Oh…” Peter says, finally sounding interested. His character stops the random movements and walks over—still somewhat clumsily—to stand before Noir’s. He clicks the _ taunt _ gesture and his character makes a come hither motion. “Let’s go, Noir.”

“I see,” Noir says and Peni can practically hear the grin in his voice. His character braces for attack. “Then I shall accept your challenge.”

Peni watches them fight until the other guys come back, all of whom stand next to her to watch them fight too and egg them on with yells and wolf whistles, placing imaginary bets on who they think is going to win, even though there’s no discernable way of telling if anyone is winning at all.

“You’re much better now,” Peni says after she notices them more easily attacking and blocking, getting the hang of the controls and their characters’ actions coming much smoother. “See? I told you you could do it.”

“I guess so,” Peter agrees after a second. “It’s easier than I thought.”

They’ve stopped fighting each other now, so Peni pulls up the modding interface again and turns on the friendly fire option once more. It’s always more interesting this way.

“Thank you for letting us fight like this,” Noir says and presses a combination of buttons that sends off a chain attack to Peter’s character.

“Wai—” The word doesn’t make it completely out of Peni’s mouth before she watches Peter’s health bar drain and his character disappear from the game. She can’t help the laughter that bubbles up her throat.

“Hey, what the—!” Peter complains loudly as his character respawns somewhere on the world map.

Peni finds him quickly, but she can’t stop laughing, and she can hear Peter grumble lowly in the background as she walks him back to their camp.

“Let’s all take a rest around a campfire and I’ll give you guys some health recovery items and we can go kill some monsters to level up, alright?” She says, trying to calm him down and gather everyone back at the camp to finally look out for some mobs to kill.

When they get back to the camp, Peter walks up to Noir’s character and punches him once. It damages him, but nothing like the chain attack Noir had done on him.

“You still owe me,” Peter grumbles and then sits at the campfire.

Peni bites her lip to keep the grin off her face, even though none of them can actually see it. She watches Miles and Gwen’s characters running back to the camp after gathering some cooking resources Peni had sent them looking for and Ham comes out of the abandoned building they’re using as temporary headquarters with some scavenging treasures.

The voice-chat fills up with voices again, lively conversation returning as they all reunite around the campfire and start cooking some food and crafting some health recovery items to pass around. Their voices all seem to weave with each other in such a way that it feels like they’re all complimenting each other rather than obfuscating everyone else. Each voice has a place and each one belongs.

Peni’s cheeks are starting to hurt from how much she’s smiled over such a short period of time, but it definitely feels like it’s worth it.

*

“Northeast on the map, guys. There’s a mob coming over,” Peni says into the microphone of her earphones, keeping her eyes on the direction she mentioned.

“Oh, I see it.” Gwen is the first one to reply and everyone follows after, voices overlapping in the in-game voice-chat.

“Watch out!” Miles says when the closing proximity triggers the mob’s attack, all of the monsters starting to run in their direction at once.

Even though the monsters are all high-level, each about 10 levels over their characters’ levels, they manage to take care of all of them swiftly and without many casualties. Noir’s health drops to critical at one point, threatening his character’s death, but Peni moves closer to him and tosses him a health pack quickly so he can recover. As they whoop and congratulate each other, one of Peni’s sensors goes off and her screen, denoting the inside of her in-game’s exo-suit interface, starts flashing red.

To her surprise, it’s Noir’s voice she hears whispering, like in awe, over the voice chat: “It’s the Area Boss.”

The Area Boss is a much more difficult target to beat than a hostile mob just a bit over their level, because it’s a giant kaijuu and it’s almost double everyone’s level. But they’re six players against one creature and Peni has faith in them, believes in the way they work with each other, the nearly-perfect synchronization of their movements coming together, like an orchestra.

“We can do this,” Peni says with determination, looking over everyone’s health and mana bars as the kaijuu roars angrily at all of them.

“Hell yeah we can!” Miles replies, his excitement almost a palpable thing over the voice-chat. Peni grins.

“Everyone, suit up!” Peter exclaims, a leader’s command, and everyone does.

Peni watches as all of their characters’ exo-suits start unfolding over them quickly, covering their in-game bodies with sturdy, metallic armor. Once everyone’s ready, they stand in formation in front of the kaijuu. 

Peni holds her breath for a moment. Exhales slowly.

“Let’s go.”

They charge with enthusiasm and battle cries. The battle seems to stretch on and on, health packs and mana elixirs being passed around like warm bread, yet everyone remains in top form. They work like a well-oiled machine, each component doing the exact required job for everything else to work smoothly. Peni listens to their voices, zeroes in on the movements of each of their characters, concentrates on the feeling running up her veins.

It feels like plucking a perfectly tuned violin: each movement the exact note required, each tag-teamed attack the flawless drag of the bow against the strings. And by the end they’ve composed a melody, one that flows and stretches like time, ever-changing and erratic yet completely in tune.

_ This is it_, Peni thinks.

“Hey guys!” She yells, abnormally loud for her, but needed so she can be heard over all the noise of celebration they’re making. Everyone falls into silence. “What do you all think… about defeating the final boss together?”

The excitement creeps back in again, slowly, and Peni can feel it slither up everyone’s spines like static electricity, including hers. She has the perfect plan for this, has worked on the device that will help them come together in one reality again for months now, and the timing couldn’t be any better.

Once everyone has exclaimed their enthusiasm and has reiterated time and time again how much they absolutely want to, Peni feels a wolfish grin spread across her face.

Proudly, she says, “Let’s beat this game.”

*

It takes a while to get them all settled into the same reality while also making sure that nobody is glitching too badly. While Peni had been able to figure out a way to squeeze the power necessary to transport them from reality to reality into a pocket-sized artifact, she had yet to figure out a way to get rid of the undesirable side-effects.

Miles is the first one to come through and he arrives early, having offered to help Peni set everything up before everyone else arrives. They spend their time in companionable silence, Peni’s playlist playing in the background as they take care of small errands around the empty house: moving the television screen in a way that it can be hooked up to the PC, bringing over from other rooms of the house couches and cushions to make sure everyone will have somewhere to sit, distributing snacks into bowls and storing sodas and energy drinks in the refrigerator.

They high-five once they’re done, nodding at their hard work, and everyone else arrives shortly after that.

Once they’ve all exchanged their greetings and settled into a free spot for sitting, Peni stands up in front of the TV.

“I know I made this game and everything, but I actually know very little about the final boss or how it fights,” she begins explaining. “SP//dr took care of most of this part’s coding, because he wanted it to be a surprise for me too.” Peni feels SP//dr nuzzle against her cheek and she smiles fondly, quietly thanking him for that once again. “So I’m just as clueless as you are. We have to work together to figure this one out.”

Peter smiles, looking confident. “We always do.”

“Of course we do,” Gwen says, grinning crookedly. “Now let’s beat this boss’ ass.”

Peni feels herself well up with pride—for her friends, for their friendship, for the work everyone has been putting in and, even, for herself. SP//dr puffs up as well and she smiles at him, then back at everyone.

She says nothing as she walks back to the sitting spot she had previously claimed, gripping the controller between her two hands and exhaling slowly. They all watch in silence as their characters spawn in the designated spot, merely meters away from the boss’ spawn point. It feels like they’re all waiting on pins and needles for _ something _to happen and no one moves.

“Everybody, suit up!” Peter yells, and his voice is _ here_, not over some headphones or distorted by sound travelling through countless different realities. Peni can feel the sound travel through her living room, expanding to encompass all of them.

And then, like a balloon being popped, everyone springs into action at once.

The start of the fight is clumsy, because it’s uncharted territory for everyone for the first time ever, but they fall into rhythm with each other easily after a few seconds. They know each other, almost too intimately now, and are attuned to the way they work individually, always searching for the way they can all work together in harmony.

Peni’s eyes are glued to the screen, to everyone’s movements, as each of them take note of the boss’ attack patterns, its items and debuff and buff stacks, announcing out loud when anyone notices anything new to make sure everyone is aware and can adapt. They work with and around each other, checking in on everyone else every so often to make sure that they all make it through this together.

The fight slowly and steadily crescendos until the boss’ health bar is downed to only a quarter of its full meter and the tension rises, knowing that the moment is coming, they’re really doing this and they’re going to beat this game once and for all, everyone working together. The symphony of their hard work and synchronicity, everyone an individual instrument in the orchestra of their teamwork, staccatos until the boss’ health drops to only a slim bar.

And then, the boss launches a last-resort, all-powerful attack, and Peter’s character steps in front of everyone else to take the brunt of the attack as the tank.

Peni watches in astonishment as Peter’s health bar completely depletes in the blink of an eye.

“No!” comes a chorus of voices in wildly different registers and intonations, but all sharing one emotion: defeat.

Peter drops his controller to the ground and exhales, clearly trying to calm himself down as quick as possible, everyone else waiting for _ something_. He looks back up, a determined set to the frown of his eyebrows, and Peni startles slightly when he locks eyes with her.

“It’s okay,” he says, reassuring and determined. It feels like he’s trusting Peni with something. “You guys can do this. You can finish this, it’s almost all the way dead. You can work together to finish this.”

Peni gulps and nods at him, and she can see everyone else nodding out of the corner of her eye. She takes a slow breath in, centering herself, and then returns her eyes to the screen, where the boss is trying to strike at her. She blocks its attack, though some damage still goes through. She grits her teeth and looks at everyone’s characters on the screen.

“We can do this,” she says, barely a whisper, and she feels SP//dr nudge her onward. “We can do this!” she repeats, louder and more confident, putting her trust in their team and the work they have proven they can do together.

She feels a hand land on her shoulder and squeeze, and she smiles back to Peter warmly.

It gets harder without a tank and something feels weird for the first few seconds, like there’s an essential part of the melody missing, their tempos off-beat. But Peter is still here and he’s just as part of this team as everyone else, so they work back to the right rhythm. Peni finds herself issuing commands the way Peter does to guide them to where they need to be, a metronome keeping everyone in check and reminding them of the right pace, a leadership so unlike her but one that she’s been trusted with. And she’s going to make damn sure she can make the one who put the trust in her proud of his decision.

When the boss finally dies, Peni almost feels like reality has snapped out of place. She gets to deal the final blow: a magic spell that takes up all of her mana in one go and that she has reserved for this specific moment, a mighty strike that utilizes the rest of the party’s stats as basis for the base attack. A perfect mirror of their teamwork.

They all watch in silence as the boss’ health bar finally depletes and it falls back onto the ground, unconscious. Then, the game flashes gold as text in big letters appear across the screen.

_ You won. _

Miles and Gwen immediately throw their hands up in the air, letting their controllers fall to the floor, letting out big _ whoo_s of satisfaction. Peni laughs and joins them after a beat, throwing her arms up as well and yelling out, like she never does, like she never feels like she’s allowed to do. But right now there’s no Uncle Ben to chastise her or Aunt May to shake her head in silent disapproval—it’s only her, her best friends and the final boss that they just completely annihilated.

Peni springs up with a big smile on her face, the empty bags of snacks that they never bothered to throw in the trash scattering all around her. They really need to clean this place up before Uncle Ben and Aunt May get here, but before that…

“Thank you so much, guys!” Peni says, looking all around her, to all of the spiders’ confused but happy faces in turn. She takes a deep breath and squeezes her hands together in front of her, trying to contain all of the feelings that feel like they’re going to come pouring out of her at any moment now. When she speaks again, it’s quieter, but it somehow feels more intense than the previous yell. “This was the best birthday ever. Thank you for spending it with me.”

The room falls into silence for a couple of minutes and Peni doesn’t dare look up. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, maybe nobody cares about her birthday and that’d be okay, but— she feels SP//dr nudge the edge of her consciousness, urging her to move, and she looks up slowly. They’re all looking at her, agape, and the moment she makes eye contact it’s like they all come back to life.

“It’s _ your birthday _?!” Miles yells, incredulous.

“Oh, you should’ve told us, Peni!” Gwen says, walking to stand next to her and hold her hands. “I didn’t even get you a gift!”

“If you want something, I can materialize it,” Ham interrupts, coming over to stand beside Gwen. He starts pulling out things from wherever he pulls things from. “You want a giant mallet or… a falling anvil?”

Peni and Gwen both quickly step out of the places they were in at the exact second to avoid having an anvil falling on them. Peni wheezes.

“Those are _ not _ good birthday presents, Ham!” Gwen says, still slightly out of breath herself.

“They’re not?” Ham asks, scrunching his snout.

“Okay, everyone!” Peter’s voice raises up, bringing everyone’s attention to him. “I know you probably just planned _this_,” he gestures all around himself, to the mess of empty snack bags and soda bottles and controllers strewn across the floor of Peni’s living room, “for your birthday, but we should celebrate somewhere else too.”

Peni smiles softly, wringing her hands. “But I don’t know where or how, though…”

Suddenly, Miles springs up from where he was sitting on the floor. His eyes are shining and crazed, like the moment he gets an incredible idea for his next mural, and Peni arches her eyebrows curiously.

“Guys… guys!” Miles starts, comes over to Gwen to grab her arm and shake it in excitement. “I know _ exactly _ where we have to go.”

*

“Your idea of a great place for a birthday celebration is _ McDonald’s_?” Peter’s voice is a mix of incredulity and exasperation, raising high on the last word, his hands gesturing wildly towards the giant neon sign in front of the establishment, brightly lit up like a beacon in the dark hours of the night.

“Of course!” Miles says, though he deflates slightly almost immediately. “I mean, there aren’t a lot of places that are still open at 2am... But! I’ve had some really good times in here with my friends and I’m sure we can have a great time here too!”

Peni looks around. The place is deserted, of course, because it’s two in the morning on a Sunday-turning-Monday and people typically don’t spend their last day of the week at McDonald’s—but the lack of people makes it feel like the place has been reserved solely for them. She smiles up at Peter and catches him mid-exasperated sigh. Their eyes meet and Peni simply nods, beaming.

It’s almost like Peter melts, the fight going out of him at once and a small, tired smile making its way to his face. He steps closer to Peni and ruffles her hair. She lets him, for once.

“Yeah, okay. Whatever.” Peter rolls his eyes. “Let’s go get McDonald’s.” He glances at Peni once more before adding, “It’s my treat.”

In a chorus of _ McDonald’s, McDonald’s, McDonald’s! _ they all march towards the restaurant. Inside the restaurant there is a total of two people, and all of them are employees. Miles takes Peni’s hand and smiles back at her before pulling her towards the register, while everyone talks loudly over each other to get their orders in.

When they sit down around a table, somehow fitting themselves into the tiny four-person booth, the noise of their conversation grows ever louder, laughter and exclamations of surprise sneaking around the almost-empty restaurant and filling in the cracks that the passage of time has left. From the small corner of the restaurant they’re sitting in, it’s almost like it comes alive, energy spreading outwards and tinting everything in warm, rich hues.

The worker shoots them a dirty look when he comes to deliver their order to the table, but it deters no one. They all fight to grab at each of their burgers and sodas and Peni waits until everything but one single order of fries is left alone on the serving table. She takes it for herself and happily starts eating one of the fries. She stops, though, when she feels someone’s eyes on her.

“Is that all you’re gonna eat?” Miles asks, mid-bite, looking pointedly at Peni’s fries. The rest of the table falls silent as they all stare at her in the exact same way and await her answer.

“Oh,” Peni flusters, feeling slightly embarrassed under the attention. SP//dr nudges her in encouragement. She looks at Miles’ burger and says, “I’m a vegetarian.”

Time seems to freeze for a second as all of them take their orders in, the place they’re eating at, and what she had just said, with matching looks of horror developing in their faces. Peni resists the urge to laugh at them, made all the more harder by SP//dr uninhibitedly laughing of his own accord. Time unfreezes back when Peter reaches over from his corner of the table to Miles’ and whacks him in the head once.

“She can’t even eat here!” He complains loudly in the silence of their pause and it’s what breaks Peni’s concentration.

She laughs, full-belly and open-mouthed, reaching up to wipe some tears from the corners of her eyes. She can feel SP//dr doubling over with laughter himself. It goes on longer than she expects it to, even though she has no parameters for something like this—she’s never even known she had the ability to laugh like this, feel like this. 

Everyone starts to look guilty after a moment too long passes, so Peni hurries to grab her fries and say, “It’s ok! I like fries.”

Something lights behind Miles’ eyes and he looks at Gwen, then at each of the Spiders in turn. Peni watches in confusion as they all nod in unison, but soon after they’re all reaching for their own fries and placing them on the tray in front of Peni, effectively creating the biggest accumulation of McDonald’s fries that she has ever seen with her eyes.

Miles stretches out an arm, as if presenting their mountain of fries as an offering, and smiles at Peni.

“Feast, then, birthday girl! Fries for days!” He entones cheerfully.

_ I don’t think I like fries _ that _ much_, is the first thing Peni thinks.

_ I’m not going to finish all of these_, is the second thing Peni thinks.

“This is the best birthday present ever,” she says instead, and smiles at each of them in turn to thank them. Because, in spite of everything, it somehow is.

Peni always feels noise all around her: white noise when she thinks of her father, static that crawls up her spine as she suits up for a new mission, the noisy streets of New York at night filled with crime. But, as Peni had discovered with time, noise can also come in good frequencies: the clapping of citizens when a bad guy has finally been beaten, the smile of a little girl after being rescued, the excited yells Matt always lets out whenever she lets him ride on the back of SP//dr.

The noise she can hear all around her right now, though—the waves of laughter and easy conversation and the feeling of familiarity and _ belonging _ that envelop her—Peni thinks _ this _ might just be the best kind of noise in the universe.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want, come find me on **[twitter!](https://twitter.com/phylocalist)**


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